a different order of time

My sabbatical begins in 6 days.

The Louisville Institute had a nifty hand-out entitled, “How to Have a Good Sabbatical.”  The first thing on the list was, “Start now living the sabbatical disciplines you desire.”

Yeah, right.

When a friend of mine heard that I had put in a 14 hour day on Sunday he said, “You don’t have to try to fit 3 months’ worth of work into two weeks you know.”  No, I don’t know.

The books all say that the congregation will become anxious in anticipation of my absence.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I certainly have been.  Initially, I was afraid that things might unravel in my absence.  Now I know better: they will hum along without a glitch.

The very first thing we contend with in Sabbath is the truth: we are not indispensable.  When we step off the treadmill, when we abstain from the impulse to try to control situations around us, when we simply sink into the blessing of being and resting, the world can and does get along just fine without us.  Bummer.

Pleasantville Church provides its pastors with a leave for renewal every seventh year.  We call this a “sabbatical.”  In September I will complete my 14^th year at Pleasantville and this summer I am grateful for the opportunity to step away from the responsibilities of leadership for an extended period of time.  In our tradition, a sabbatical leave is three months.  My sabbatical will begin Monday, May 28^th (the day after Pentecost) and conclude on Monday, August 27^th.

I am blessed to have been awarded a Sabbatical Grant for Pastoral Leaders from the Louisville Institute.  Working with a definition of Sabbath as “a different ordering of time,” I will be visiting five Christian communities with an eye to exploring what they have to teach us about different ways of practicing Sabbath.  These communities are: The Simple Way in Kensington, Pennsylvania – a community of primarily young evangelical Christians who choose to move in with the poor; St. John’s Abbey – a Benedictine Monastery in Collegeville, Minnesota; The Bay View Association, a Chautauqua in Northern Michigan; The Uplands, a retirement community in Tennessee with a reputation for continued service in the world; and The Abbey at Iona in Scotland – an ecumenical community working for peace and social justice.

I have chosen to begin this blog as a way to reflect upon the sabbatical experience and to share it with others.  Blogging is new territory for me.  We’ll see how it goes…